I then glanced at the Lady Temione. She had a beautiful face. The auburn hair was certainly attractive. She had good flanks, not a bad belly, and lovely breasts. To be sure, she needed diet, exercise and discipline. Those things, too, besides improving her appearance, would considerably increase her sexual needs. Yes, she was beautiful. Many of the women of Cos are beautiful. We enjoy them in Port Kar. She was aroused, to the extent she could be, as a free woman, in watching the taking of the slave. To be sure, she had been given little choice, and put to the tables. I had seen to it that she had performed obeisance before men. Too, she had been made to crawl in the presence of men, and had been made to bring the bill in her teeth. Such things work their effects on women, even free women.

I closed the tablet and latched it.

The slave on the table gasped, used, serving, clinging to its edges.

The bearded fellow, holding her, was then still for a moment.

"She is moving!" said the Lady Temione, scandalized.

"Yes," I said, "she is cooperating in what is being done."

"Terrible!" whispered the Lady Temione.

"Perhaps she is responding to instructions," I said.

"Instructions!" she said.

"OF course," I said. I wondered if the free woman really thought that the subjugation of slaves to orders ended with such matters as cooking and cleaning, the polishing of leather and such, and that they would not be similarly subject to orders, and also absolutely, where the intimate, marvelous, precious, private, delicious realms of the furs were concerned. Indeed, some think it is most pleasant to command the slave in such places, a couching chamber, a room of submission, a cubicle, and so on.

The bearded fellow drew back for a moment.

The girl clutched the table. She was still for a moment or two. Then she moaned. Then she moved.

"Did you see that!" she said. "She actually lifted herself to him!" "Surely only a slave would so lift herself to a male," I said. The Lady Temione blushed, hotly.

"Look at that slut wriggle!" she said.

"She is afraid she may not have been fully pleasing," I said. "She is trying now to interest him, to be pleasing, to entice him. But I think he is not angry with her. I think he is only playing with her, only teasing her." I wondered how the Lady Temione would wriggle.

"Look!" said the Lady Temione.

"He is now again with her," I said.

"Yes!" she said.

"Yes," I agreed. The slave was indeed beautiful. To ground my emotion, so to speak, I gripped the table. It seemed thusly, interestingly, as though my tension might pass through it then, down to the floor, to be dissipated, like a flood. I kept myself from breaking wood from the table.

"Am I attractive?" asked the Lady Temione.

"Yes," I said.

"Ah!" she said.

"a€”as free women go," I added.

"Sleen!" she sobbed. "Sleen!"

The slave now moaned and whimpered, and then cried out, suddenly, as though momentarily frightened, or alarmed, but then, again, in a moment, understanding what was going to be done with her, that to which she was relentlessly being brought, began to cry out softly, gladly, gratefully, eagerly, anticipatingly. "Why does that girl reveal her emotions like that?" asked Lady Temione. "Perhaps she is forbidden to conceal them," I said.

"Oh!" she said. "How naked that would make a woman."

"Yes," said, "but it also, in its way, makes her free."

"I suppose so," she said, enviously.

Suddenly the girl on the table screamed aloud, again and again, half reared up, began to buck, but could not escape, so tightly and helplessly held she was, uttering the word, "Master!" over and over.

"Slave orgasm has been forced upon her," I commented.

Lady Temione quivered in her chains.

"I suspect he will not even have to pay for that use of her," I said. "It will probably be given to him, as a token of good will, in compensation for his earlier disappointment."

The fellow had resumed his place now behind the table, sitting there, cross-legged, but he had permitted the slave to half lie, half sit, by him, holding to him, her arms about his waist, her head and hair at his side. "How pleased I am," she said, "that I am not a woman such as that!" "I see," I said.

The slave now knelt beside him, holding him by the arm. She was looking at him with something akin to awe, for what he had done to her, for what he had made her feel. She kissed him softly, deferentially, gratefully, about the shoulder. "I am not a servile, wriggling slave," she said, angrily.

"She is not wriggling now," I said.

"Look at her," she said, in disgust. "She is content!"

"But she must fear," I said, "for she may be ordered from him by so little as a word or gesture, and she must obey in all things."

"She is a slave," she said. "She should not be happy, She should be miserable and unhappy!"

"Doubtless, if you owned her," I said, "you could make her so." "I suppose she is beautiful," she said, "and owned. I suppose some low men might find them attractive."

"Yes," I said, "and Ubars, and such."

"I am not a slave," she said.

"I understand," I said. Certainly she was not a legal slave, or at least not yet. She was not, technically, at least at present, a slave in the eyes of the law, as an animal is an animal in the eyes of the law, a tarsk a tarsk, a vulo, so soft and pretty, a vulo.

"Men are not my masters," she said.

"I see," I said.

"How pleased I am that I am not one of those women who must crawl about the feet of men, licking and kissing, and groveling, and begging to be found pleasing!" "I understand," I said.

She suddenly jerked at the manacles which confined her wrists. They were well on her.

"Why are you angry?" I asked. "I am not angry," she said.

She looked down at her wrists, in the steel, joined by the chain.

"You look well in shackles," I said.

She put her hands on her thighs, the chain bunched then between them.

"He did not want me," she said.

"True," I said.

"I was rejected!"

"Not every woman is attractive to every man," I said, "and, too, you are a free woman."

"I don't care!" she said. "I am free!"

"I understand," I said.

"How pleased I am that I am not subject to use," she said. "Thus, even thought I must shamefully serve, I can still, ultimately, retain my pride and dignity." "I doubt that that fellow would have been overly concerned with such niceties," I said.

"No," she said, shuddering, "I suspect not."

I glanced at the fellow at the other table. He was now giving his orders to the beautiful slave. She was kneeling back. She must now relate to him as a mere waitress. I suspected he would manage to get more than porridge, even this late. "Do you want anything else?" asked Lady Temione, irritatedly. I saw that she was terribly jealous of the attention which men might bestow upon the slave, but how could that be, for she was, by her own account, infinitely superior to the slave, and she was free? Too, she was, according to her own account, not interested in such things.

"Anything else, what? I inquired.

"Anything else, Sir," she said, acidly.

She was at table service. Surely the keeper would wish her to observe proper amenities.

"Are you being suitably deferential?" I asked.

"Of course, Sir, she said, unpleasantly.

Her attitude amused me. Although she had, doubtless, some theoretical understanding that she was subject to discipline, she was not yet fully aware, as is a female slave, of how such realities might affect her situation. Too, she had not even been informed that she was, in truth, subject to guest use. "Perhaps you would like to fetch a slave whip?" I asked.

"No, Sir," she said, quickly. "Please, no, Sir." I gathered then she had at least seen slave girls whipped, or after they had been whipped. She would have some idea of what the whip could do to a woman. it is an excellent correctional device for female behavior.